Birth control pills are often used to treat menstrual migraine by evening out hormone levels and sometimes to stop menstruation all together. In recent news are a medication that keeps women from menstruating and a tasty new pill.
Lybrel, a continuous oral birth control that stops menstruation, may soon be an option for women with menstrual migraine. Taken each day, the pills provide a continuous supply of hormones without a break for a period, ever. With Seasonale, a similar product that’s been on the market for awhile, a woman menstruates four times a year. Wyeth, the maker of Lybrel, hopes to market it the drug early next year, pending FDA approval. It seems creepy to me, but The Well-Timed Period quotes a report that says that periods aren’t as necessary as they seem.
To learn more about “menstrual management,” see the links under “How to Skip a Period” on The Well-Timed Period and poke through the very informative blog.
In more bizarre contraceptive news, a mint-flavored chewable birth control pill called Femcon Fe is now available by prescription. Kids mistaking birth control pills for candy is already a risk, won’t making the pills taste good further the problem?
(By the way, if you’re a Seasonale user, generics called Jolessa and Quasense are now available.)
There are various extended-cycle regimen birth control pills available but it depends upon the women if they want menstrual cycle after every 3 months (quarterly) or they want to remain “free”. htttp://www.mybirthcontrolstore.com
This is all well and good…if you are young, and if you do not have migraine with aura.
Please refer to the following from the ACHE website: http://www.achenet.org/women/oral/stroke.php
It is the standard of care amongst headache experts to advise that women with migraine with aura either not use oral contraceptives at all, or use them very judiciously and with aspirin cardiac prophylaxis, and only if there are no significant cardiovascular risk factors. It is also recommended that women who have migraine without aura discontinue oral contraceptives after age 35. Smokers who have migraine should not use oral contraceptives at all.
I recall reading a recent article that surveyed migraine sufferers, and found that a significant proportion of primary care physicians were not aware of current recommendations regarding migraine and oral contraceptives. (I cannot, however, find the article in my giant stack-of-articles-to-be-filed. So, no citation for you–sorry. I think the author was Dr. Elizabeth Loder, but Google is not bringing it up.)
There is also newer data regarding the increased risk of heart disease in women with migraine, which was published in JAMA recently. http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/296/3/283
This study looked at women over 45, but estrogens, contained in the vast majority of contraceptives, are also a cardiac risk factor.
So–if you are going to proceed with this, be certain your physician knows you are a migraine sufferer (if you are), and research your family history and personal cardiovascular risk factors.